Careful planning led to One Mile’s NGSA success

The One Mile Primary School located on the Wismar shore of Linden celebrated its outstanding performance at the 2018 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA). Out of Upper Demerara-Berbice’s top 10, One Mile Primary copped seven of those spaces including the first and second position.

While the school is known for academic and extracurricular successes, this year’s performance has taken Linden by storm and continued to be the talk of the town even after the results were released.

Head Teacher, Alister Fraser believes that the careful planning and strategizing for this year’s success by all teachers and staff members of the school must be accredited for its success. Determined teachers collaborated and exerted efforts into specialised techniques to realise the children’s success.

Somira Dainty, who scored 519 marks which gained her entry to Queen’s College.

Shakina McGregor, who scored 521 marks which secured her entry to Queen’s College.

Students and teachers of One Mile Primary School during an outdoor assembly.

Fraser noted that while the top student, Shakina McGregor, who copped the 12th position in the country with 521 marks came from teacher Ferdinand McLeod’s class, all of the other Grade Six teachers as well as other teachers of the school must be commended. “All the teachers; Charlyn Duke Agard, Ferdinand McLeod, Rawl Ford and Sharon Murray must be commended, they would have worked beyond the call of duty and I am extremely grateful to God and teachers and the rest of the staff in securing the children’s success,” HM Fraser said.

The teachers at the school collaborated and designed several methods to effectively relay the curriculum concepts to the students. They initiated a task development session where teachers, though not teaching Grade Six but are strong in a particular area, were tasked with giving practical sessions to the teachers and students of the Grade 6 classes.

“We looked at those teachers who were strong at composition, we used them across the school. Those who were strong at Mathematics we utilised them to deliver practical sessions for the other teachers to see and follow, they even went to the different classes and conducted some practical lesson with the children,” the Headteacher explained.

One Mile and Region 10 top student Shakina McGregor will be attending the Queen’s College. The overjoyed top achiever said she is extremely astounded by her performance and that all her hard work certainly paid off. “I feel overwhelmed, I had to study late at nights, the studying wasn’t hard, but it paid off.”

Coming close behind her also from One Mile is Somira Dainty with 519 marks. Dainty said that she feels very happy though her performance was unexpected. “I would never have thought I would have done so well at the exams, I never thought as an individual I would have been able to work so hard to place second.” Dainty described the preparation process as a difficult one, with a lot of sleepless nights and extra lessons.

The other top achievers from One Mile are Latanya Edwards with 516 marks, Zaria Jacobis with 514 marks; Oroyo Trotman, Zalika Dey and Anton Ward with 513 marks and Makayla Moseley 512 marks.

For three years of these students’ primary school life, they were at three different venues in Linden after the school was burnt down in 2012. In a previous interview, Fraser related the struggle to keep the school together at a supervisory level, as it was divided into three.

“We were choked and cramped into three different spaces and supervision was very difficult,” he said. Despite these challenges, however, the administrative body utilised the resources available to attain maximum results. The school was rebuilt in 2015 and the teachers united to ensure the children’s past struggles did not deter them from success at their NGSA examination.

In addition to One Mile Primary, Watooka Day, Regma Primary and Amelia’s Ward Primary also secured places in the region’s top 10 list.

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